National Law Journal

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Three recent departures from Mayer Brown highlight the law firm's growing preference for representing insurance companies in various kinds of work, creating conflicts of interest for attorneys who sue insurers on behalf of policyholders, said the lawyers who have left. The latest to leave are Alan Martin, 47, and Adam Hollander, 40, who started at Barnes & Thornburg's Chicago office Monday. They follow John Vishneski, who joined the Chicago office of Reed Smith in September. Martin said his exit was necessary because the conflicts have restricted his ability to take on additional work.

Harvey M. Silets, 75, a prominent white-collar defense lawyer who represented mobsters, corrupt judges and politicians, corporations and hundreds of small businessmen caught up in tax woes, died Tuesday, Jan. 23, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said his daughter, Alexandra. Mr. Silets' family declined to give a specific cause of death. "He was the criminal tax defense attorney in Chicago for years," said Royal Martin, Mr. Silets' onetime law partner. "He had a mind like a steel trap.

Gary L. Fairchild won a national reputation for leading Chicago's legal giant Winston & Strawn through changing economic times, once axing 20 partners in a move trumpeted as necessary to position the law firm for better times in the future. In forcing out about 10 percent of the firm's partners in one fell swoop, Fairchild told The National Law Journal in 1992 that it was better "to deal with the issue forthrightly, to do it promptly." But at the same time he was letting go partners "with his right thumb, he had his left hand in the cash drawer," a federal prosecutor said at Fairchild's sentencing Tuesday for stealing nearly $800,000 from his firm and his clients.

Dean Olds has lost nearly everything in the 2 1/2 years since his estranged wife's unsolved slaying--his prestigious partnership with a Loop law firm, his multimillion-dollar fortune, his relationship with his children, his Wilmette home and, finally, his dignity. Now, a state agency wants to take away one of the few things that this once nationally respected trademark attorney has left: his law license. The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission on Tuesday filed a three-count complaint against Olds, alleging he engaged in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" during the Cook County divorce proceedings initiated by his wife, Suzanne, and his fight in Cook County Probate Court for a share of her estate.

Gerald Gunther, a constitutional scholar and the author of the definitive biography of his mentor, Judge Learned Hand, died Tuesday at his home in Stanford, Calif. He was 75. The cause was cancer, said his son Daniel, a lawyer who lives in San Francisco. One of the nation's foremost scholars of constitutional law who sometimes was mentioned as a Supreme Court prospect, Mr. Gunther had been on the faculty of Stanford Law School since 1962. He wrote "Constitutional Law," a 1965 volume of case studies that is the standard text on the subject in most U.S. law schools; the latest edition was written with Kathleen Sullivan.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation and ex-Beatles guru, wants to build a City of Immortals-in Oklahoma City. Aides from his Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development Corp. envision April construction of a low-density housing community-one of several planned across the nation. Backers tout communities that are "noise-free, pollution-free and free from crime and anxiety." For those who believe, there's also a free lunch. PET`S NOT PATRICIAN In a region where good fences make good neighbors, Princess Farah Diba Pahlavi evidently has fences to mend.

* Dewey & LeBoeuf retains prominent attorney Albert Togut * Dewey struggling with partner defections and high debt * Hiring of Togut does not mean bankruptcy filing imminent By Noeleen Walder and Leigh Jones NEW YORK, April 19 (Reuters) - Elite New York law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf has hired a prominent bankruptcy attorney as it struggles with high debt and partner defections, according to two attorneys at other law firms who have knowledge of the matter.

Ten years ago, Susan M. Benton-Powers was a young attorney just a few years out of Boston University Law School with a promising career. But she and her husband, Chris, a CPA, had a 2-year-old child at home. And Benton-Powers didn't want to spend most of her waking hours buried in voluminous legal briefs while someone else raised her kid. Then came the law firm industry equivalent of a miracle. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal made her an offer that at the time was almost unheard of at a big city law firm: She could work part time as a salaried employee, and she was put on a partnership track.

(Reuters) - In the latest defections to hit Washington, D.C., law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs, nine partners are leaving the firm, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the moves. The departures come as the 350-lawyer Patton Boggs is in merger talks with the larger Squire Sanders and it deals with ongoing financial woes. Two of the partners are among the top dozen performing lawyers at the firm, according to one of the sources, who is familiar with Patton Boggs but did not want to be named.

There's another feather in the cap of Naperville attorney Kathleen Zellner. The National Law Journal has put Zellner on this year's list of the top 10 lawyers in the nation who always out-prepare their opponents. Members of the exclusive club include Dan Webb, Edward Bennett Williams, Gerry Spence, Susan Getzendanner, Philip Corboy and Thomas Demetrio. "I feel honored to be in such company," said Zellner, who built much of her reputation on criminal appeals and now focuses on civil litigation.